The national polls have all consolidated into a range of roughly Obama +7. That is right about where our model sees the race as well, giving Obama a 6.8 point advantage in its composite of state and national polling. Our model notes, however, that candidates with large leads in the polls have had some tendency to underperform marginally on election day, and so projects an Obama win of 6.0 points tomorrow.

Far more important, of course, is the race for 270 electors. It appears almost certain that Obama will capture all of the states won by John Kerry in 2008. Pennsylvania, while certainly having tightened somewhat over the course of the past two weeks, appears to be holding at a margin of about +8 for Obama, with very few remaining undecideds. Obama also appears almost certain to capture Iowa and New Mexico, which were won by Al Gore in 2000. Collectively, these states total 264 electoral votes, leaving Obama just 5 votes shy of a tie and 6 of a win.

Obama has any number of states to collect those 5 or 6 votes. In inverse order of difficulty, these include Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Indiana. Obama is the signficant favorite in several of these states; winning any one of them may be fairly difficult for John McCain, but winning all of them at once, as John McCain probably must do, is nearly impossible.

As this thread will be sacrificed for the election day one within hours, allow me to give a bi-polar schizophrenic his say on this thread. This is the last in a series of three that I posted- Yes, I am still beating the dead horse that is Chuck James.

Here's Obama talking about his Grandmother's passing. You can see it wear on him, but he's eloquent all the same. He doesn't make it a point but he takes that pain and turns it to good purpose. Hell of a thing to watch a politician be a honest to goodness human.

You want to shake your head, check out the front page of Drudge right now---Its some sad, last ditch grab at pushing the base into action tomorrow--- You've got a 'flashback' to Obama 'making one-fingered gesture when speaking about HIllary', to a 'World Media Celebrates Obama' complete with a Guardian frontpage featuring two black women crying (foreigners!!!), to a big pic of Obama with a single tear running downing his face over the link to his grandma's orbit (He's weak! weak!), to this video, which to me calls to mind Reagan's cadillac driving welfare grandmother, 'dem blacks always wanting something for nohing------

Shame McCain is going to win thanks to Joe the Plumber's big empty bald head. That 'share the wealth', socialism thing was mana from gawd for his campaign.

Matt Drudge has completely lost whatever marbles he had rattling around in his head over the past couple months. He's always been a right-winger but at least he was still in touch with reality. fivethirtyeight's Nate has been calling out every outlier poll he's been cites and Gawker has been ripping ol pork pie hat wearing Matt a new hole almost daily.

Ten years from Clinton's blowjob to the election of Obama, The decade of drudge can end now, thanks.

Matt Drudge has completely lost whatever marbles he had rattling around in his head over the past couple months. He's always been a right-winger but at least he was still in touch with reality. fivethirtyeight's Nate has been calling out every outlier poll he's been cites and Gawker has been ripping ol pork pie hat wearing Matt a new hole almost daily.

I find myself only contributing to threads like these on those occasions when I draw a complete blank and wikipedia is no help. Sure, I know about McCarthyism and the Red Scare and so on, but what, exactly, does the average US citizen have against socialism? I mean, as much as I dislike their tendency to boss people around for the Common Good and Improvement of Mankind, even I have to admit socialism works after a fashion - which at the moment is more than you can say for that sorry excuse for neo-laissez-faire feudalism they've had going. Please confirm my faith in mankind by telling me that it's not as as simple as hundreds of millions of moderately intelligent people not bothering to discover the distinction between socialism and communist-style fascism?

Sorry to disappoint, it's almost entirely about ignorant people choosing to keep alive the same tired outdated ideologies they were handed growing up, meaning they're literally working from a viewpoint that comes straight out of McCarthy era politics: socialism is inherently bad and immoral, capitalism is inherently good.

The main thrust of it has to do with someone taking a little piece of "what's mine" and giving it to someone else that "didn't earn it", even if I, myself, didn't "earn" it, either. For some reason empathy is a trait most well-to-do people in this country don't really possess. I think it has nothing to do with fascism. I'm pretty sure most of the people that decry socialism would be perfectly fine with aristocratic fascism, so long as they're on the right side of control. Socialism implies quality that capitalism and fascism don't (and can't) have. "We're all the same" is a lot scarier than "I'm better than you."

Furthermore, I don't think they have a problem with "socialism" the idea, they have a problem with "socialism" the word. Besides, their good Christian Bibles say to love thy neighbor as thyself, so I would think that socialism ought to be hunky-dory.

Nygaard - I think it has a lot to do with the lack of proper economics education in American public schools. Lots of folks think socialism is definitionally interchangeable with communism, and that Stalinism is interchangeable with communism. If it were placed in the right light and properly explained instead of used as a political boogeyman by shouting faces on TV, most Americans would likely be for socialism, they just don't realize it. That's why FDR, a blatant socialist, is still one of our most beloved presidents, and was elected for 4 terms in his time.

edit: Oh, hey, a couple of my points were made while I typed. Still, repetition never hurt anybody.